


Two Hawkes Walk Into a Bar

by FeatherWriter, inkandpaperhowl



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeatherWriter/pseuds/FeatherWriter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandpaperhowl/pseuds/inkandpaperhowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Black Emporium is full of oddities, but few so strange as the Mirror of Transformation. Designed to connect those who stray too close to other versions of themselves, it is a powerful artifact indeed. When two very different versions of the Champion of Kirkwall find themselves drawn through its surface at the same time, their meeting is something neither of them would have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Hawkes Walk Into a Bar

**Author's Note:**

> Len is Feather's Hawke (red, sided with the templars); Aliena is Ink's (purple with some blue, sided with the mages). We thought it would be fun to see what would happen if they met. Turns out: lots of yelling.

.

It looks like the Hanged Man, but there's something off about it. Conversations hum in the background, but Len realizes she can't decipher any of them. There are people milling about, but she doesn't recognize any, and no one listens to her.

And more importantly, the last thing she remembers is standing in the Black Emporium next to that damn mirror. She _knew_ she shouldn't have touched that thing.

 _What is this? The Fade or something?_ It doesn't quite feel like the Fade, but it's similar. That same dreamlike wrongness over everything, as though she's the only thing that's real. She's frowning at her surroundings when her eyes catch sight of something else that doesn't fit. Someone else who seems to be real.

Aliena blinks: _the Hanged Man?_ No...not the Hanged Man. Her eyes automatically flick toward the end of the bar were Isabela usually leans, and the fact that it's empty more than anything else solidifies the idea that this isn't real. Or right. Or...she blinks again, focusing on the only other thing that seems real: a woman standing by the door. There's something familiar about her, but distinctly not, too. As if she has seen her face in a dream one time and then forgotten it.

She shivers and glances up the stairs behind her, half-hoping to hear Varric up there, but knowing that the building probably didn't exist beyond this room. As soon as she thinks it, there is a sudden surety in the back of her mind, telling that she is absolutely correct in that assumption. She sighs and looks back at the other woman.

 _I wouldn't touch that if I were you_ , Anders had said from where he was paging through recipes across the room, and suddenly Aliena wishes fervently that she had listened to him and left the Mirror of Transformation alone.

Len walks up to the bar and finds that, obligingly, there's at least a drink waiting for her. Was it there before? Probably not. She's going to drink it anyway.

She shoots a glance at the other person in the room, then raises her glass in a kind of welcoming toast. "So, this is the part where you possess me and kill all of my friends and family, proving the Chantry correct once and for all, right? Sorry, I'm new to becoming an abomination."

Aliena laughs and moves up to the bar as well, taking her drink--Bethany would tell her not to drink it ("You know the stories about fairyland food!"), but she does anyway because who else will ever get to say they drank...whatever this is in...wherever this is. But it turns out that no matter what dimension the Hanged Man is in, the whiskey tastes like rat. She sighs and downs the rest of it. 

"I'm new to possessing," she jokes, leaning back on the bar. "What do I say to you to make you take me? 'I'll give you unlimited power, breath that never smells bad, and the best sex you've ever had'? Or is that too much?"

Len laughs. "You might have a hard time beating Isabela on that last one. I've got a better proposal. How about nobody possesses anybody, and we just sit here and have a friendly drink until we figure out how to get out of... wherever this is?"

She glances sideways, trying to place what seems so oddly familiar about this person. Is that a demon just trying to make her trust it? If so, this is a weird way to do it.

Internally, Aliena jumps at the mention of Isabela--and the implication that this person has also slept with her--but externally, she just raises her magically refilled drink to the woman and takes a swig, swallowing the burning sensation down.

Funny, you'd think a weird, possibly-the-Fade, dream dimension would not have the same negative alcohol effects as the real world.

"If we're to be friendly, introductions might be nice," she says with a shrug. "I'll go first, since you appear to be the distrusting type. I'm Hawke."

Len's eyes narrow suspiciously. "Either I've got cousins in town that Gamlen didn't know about—which, honestly, wouldn't be surprising— or something very, very weird is going on."

To explain her point, she extends a hand back, but her expression is a challenge. "Hello, Hawke. I'm Hawke. Champion of Kirkwall, Slayer of the Arishok."

Aliena blinks again. "Same," she says, taking the offered hand in a firm shake. The callouses are different but familiar, as everything is about this...other Hawke. "Well, I had help on that last one, but the city doesn't seem to remember that."

Len stays silent for a moment. Then in one quick motion, she throws back the rest of her drink. "So. You're me. But you're obviously not me. What exactly is this then?"

"You tell me," Aliena says, bracing her elbows on the bar. "I didn't even want to go to the Black Emporium, but Varric insisted."

Len gives her a nod. "What's your mother's name, then?"

"Leandra," Aliena says, and though her frown seems angry, her eyes are sad. "Or it was. Do you keep your name after you're brutally murdered by a psychopath trying to recreate his lost love from the bodies of other women?"

Len flinches. "Maker's _breath_. No one else... knew about that. And your brother? You have a brother named Carver?"

Aliena's frown deepens, her eyes grow sadder. "I _had_ ," she corrects, voice quiet. "He was an asshole of a brother, but he was _my_ asshole brother. He didn't make it out of Ferelden, though." Her eyes narrow. "My sister Bethany did, though," she says, tone indicating it’s half a question, an unspoken _did yours?_

Len's mouth works for a moment, and then she swallows. "Bethany survived? She... I... We lost her in Ferelden. Carver, Mom, and I were the only ones to make it to Kirkwall."

Aliena shudders. "Maker, I can't even imagine. Was it an ogre?"

Len nods, trying to process it. "Right before the dragon showed up."

"Carver dove in front of it to stop it from getting to Mother," Aliena says quietly, half-remembering, half-confirming. "It just...picked him up. Like he was some kind of toy..."

"Bethany thought she could take it with magic, I guess," Len says, voice subdued. "I should have taught her better. We can't fix everything with a spell. Dad was proof enough of that..."

"She knows," Aliena says, and hopes it's comforting. Her brain bends around the idea that she is comforting _herself_ and then shies away. It's better if she thinks of this Hawke sitting before her as someone else entirely.

She moves the conversation away, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it. "So, you are a mage?"

Len raises an eyebrow. "You're not?"

Aliena shakes her head, gesturing to where her quiver pokes up over her shoulder. "Archer. Dad was so disappointed--he kept trying to get me to light things on fire, but I couldn't. I used matches one time, under the table, and he was so excited until Mother told him I'd cheated." She sighs, the memory tugging at her frown again.

Len laughs. "I think I did it accidentally, honestly." She holds up a hand, and small flames dance into existence around her fingers. "Fire was always easiest." She looks down at the counter, tone turning bitter. "Probably why the city ended up ablaze, I guess." She glances over. "Did everything go to shit for you too? Or was that just me?"

"Honestly, I think that's just Kirkwall," Aliena says. "It attracts the sort ready to blow it sky high."

Len shakes her head, catching the reference, and rolls her eyes. "Honestly, what the hell was he thinking? It's like he practically _wanted_ all those mages to die. What exactly did he think Meredith would do? 'Oh you blew up the Chantry, I guess mages aren't a threat after all.'"

"Anders?" Aliena asks, clarifying that they're talking about the same event.

Len nods. "He blew up the Chantry, right?"

“Yes," Aliena says. "But the mages didn't--well, some of them died, I suppose, but just the ones who we didn't make it to in time."

Len nods. "Yeah. At least we didn't kill all of them. Meredith would have slaughtered wantonly, but the ones who surrendered didn't deserve that. Even Cullen managed to figure that one out, though I practically had to smack him over the head with it."

Aliena snorts. "Noodlebrain? Of course, someone with so pervasive a stink must exist in all alternate dimensions."

Len raises her glass, smiling. "Honestly he's probably more frustrating than his insane boss was. Like, Meredith's your run-of-the-mill, crazy, mage-hating templar, but Cullen's just... pathetic. He's almost _too_ easy to torment, it's barely even fun anymore."

Aliena lowers her voice in a mockery of the erstwhile Knight-Captain. "'Mages can't be treated like people, not like you and me, Hawke,' he says while _Anders_ is standing _right next to him_. Maker, it was so disgusting it became hilarious. Isabela didn't stop making that joke for a week."

Len laughs aloud. "He said it to _me_. I just stood there, nodding, trying not to laugh in his face. 'Why yes, Knight-Captian, please tell me all about those pesky mages.'"

Aliena joins in the laughter, wiping tears from her eyes. "Maker, that man. Honestly, I couldn't forgive him for that if I tried, even if he did come over to our side in the end."

Len raises an eyebrow. "Did he, though? I always got the sense he was too scared to try to face me, especially after what he'd just seen me do to Orsino and Meredith." She kicks back another swallow, grumbling. "Didn't stop him from agreeing to betray me with her from the start, though."

Aliena shrugs. "He helped fight Meredith, at the very least, and anyone who stood up for that battle wins some points in my book."

Yeah, I guess," Len grumbles. "Guess that's why I didn't kill him too."

Aliena shrugs. "I suppose. I wish I hadn't had to kill Orsino, though. That was ridiculous, honestly. We were _winning_. We'd lost less than ten mages, and that was in Lowtown, before we even made it to the Gallows. I can't figure out what he was thinking."

Len shakes her head. "It was inevitable. As soon as the Chantry went up, someone was going to have to die. Orsino and the mages didn't stand a chance, and he did what mages always seem to do when they're desperate: make bad decisions."

Len pauses, noticing the discrepancies in the way they're talking for the first time. "Wait... when you say _we_ were winning, do you mean..."

"The mages," Aliena says, eyes narrowing.

Len blinks, winces, and then takes another large drink of whatever is in the mug. She has a feeling it's not going to make her drunk. "Well then."

"Well, I wasn't exactly going to help the templars slaughter _my sister_ and everyone else who'd been locked up in that hellhole of a jail for all those years," Aliena says carefully, sharpening her words, punctuating her sentence with a heavy tap of her mug on the counter.

"Well, I didn't want to kill my brother either," Len says, voice hard. "Oh, right. You wouldn't know. Carver joined the templars, the little shit. His dad and two sisters are apostates... and he joins the templars because I left him behind."

"Asshole," Aliena mutters, but she can almost see it, her stupid little brother all dressed up in uniform, that uncomfortable smirk on his lips. "Urgh, _damn it_ , Carver," she sighs. "I suppose I can't talk--I left Bethany behind because I wanted to protect her from whatever we might find in the Deep Roads, and Cullen came and carted her away to the Circle instead. Turns out my protection is worth shit." She swallows her drink and glares down at the bottom of the mug as if the whiskey were to blame for her inability to protect her family.

"Cullen would," Len snarls. "The only reason he didn't get me was that I think I was too famous by the time he figured it out.” She goes quiet for a moment. "You really sided with the mages? Did... Did it work?"

"Well, people still died," Aliena says, shrugging. "That's what people do in Kirkwall, apparently. But yes. We...well, we saved rather a lot of them, and I think that qualifies as some kind of victory. It might be the kind of victory that comes with black eyes, splitting headaches, and not knowing where exactly your pants are, but hey--the other guy looks much worse than you do."

Len frowns, going quiet. "You beat the templars though? The Circle won?"

"The _mages_ won," Aliena says, stressing the noun. "The Circle doesn't exist anymore."

Len shakes her head. "Guess you picked the good choice then. Serves me right, I guess, for trusting templars."

"Oh, never do that," Aliena says, her usual smile resuming its place. "That's like trusting Uncle Gamlen to listen when you speak or spend money wisely."

"You know what Meredith did, at the end of it all?" Len says, voice bitter. "I stood at her side, fought through that hell with her damn templars, killed more mages than I can count, and then at the end of it all, she turns to Cullen and tells him it's time to kill me."

Aliena laughs, a mirthless scoff. "Sounds like something she would do. She was literally insane, you know. Or...mine was." Her brow furrows as she looks at the other Hawke. "No offense, but why on earth were you killing mages for her, anyway?"

"Well, whatever Anders says, it wasn't just to piss him off." Len frowns. "For one, I didn't think the mages stood a chance. That was the main reason honestly. The Knight-Commander said she was killing every mage in Kirkwall and offered me a way out. I took it. I know what templars can do to mages. I spent ten years trying to make sure those templars wouldn't come after me and I didn't want to fight them then. That... and I don't think I had many friends in the Circle. Quite a few enemies actually, if I'm honest."

"I suppose I can't fault you for that," Aliena says, tilting her head to one side, considering her counterpart's words. "It did look pretty hopeless for a while." She pauses, taking another drink, then says, "But didn't you ever think there was a better way?"

"I just wanted to not get executed, honestly. It wasn't fair to the mages, but I'm not a Circle mage. It wasn't fair to them when I tracked down the runaways and turned them back over either, but I did that, too. I never wanted to be Champion and I never wanted to get involved. But Anders couldn't keep his damn cause to himself. He had to drag, not only me, but the entire city into this mess with him."

"You turned mages in to the Circle?" Aliena says hotly, knocking her mug over--the drink didn't spill, but she was too focused on the conversation to notice--and straightening up from her lean. "How could you send them there, knowing how they were being treated there?"

Len’s voice rises. "I wasn't about to piss off the templars by helping runaways! Look, I didn't turn in Anders or Merril. But when I'm paid for a job, I do it. You're not a mage, you don't know what it's like to have them breathing down your neck." Len gives her a guarded look. "Maybe you helping them is what led Cullen to Bethany."

"My helping them got them out of the city--out of the Marches, if they were smart--and had nothing to do with Bethany getting taken.” Aliena says defensively. “And--I'm sorry, I don't know what it's like to have templars breathing down my neck? Just because Carver didn't take the responsibility seriously doesn't mean _I_ didn't. It was _my life_ to protect Bethany from the day she was born, I spent just as much time looking over my shoulder as she did, and I did everything I could to keep the damned templars off her so she could have a normal childhood--so that she _didn't_ have to watch for them."

Len shakes her head. "And I didn't? All the things I did and for what? So she could die in the Blight? Maker, you sound like Anders. I guess it's good he managed to convince one of us. It wasn't _my job_ to help those mages, and I don't see why it needed to be. Nobody helped me. Nobody helped Bethany. Any mage weak or stupid enough to get captured in the first place is probably better off in the Circle anyway."

Aliena closes her eyes, trying to calm down. She honestly feels a little bit sick to her stomach. The thought that she--that any version of her at all--could be so...unsympathetic. Aveline had needled her endlessly for not doing something more important with her life than just wander around butting into other people's business and helping them, but she had been content doing that. She had been content just _helping_.

And here she was, sitting at a bar with a version of herself who couldn't have been bothered to help at all.

"You're not me," she says finally, quietly, and there's a hint of an undercurrent to her voice that might have been revulsion. "You... did you ever even try?"

Len's mouth works. Her initial response is to deny. _Of course I didn't care about anyone, who do you take me for?_ If it had been Anders, she probably would have said that, if only to keep him from trying to get her to help.

"Yeah, you know what: I did try. And people ended up dead. So it was easier not to. Carver abandoned me, Bethany and Mom are dead. Who exactly am I supposed to be trying for anyway?"

"People die. It happens. That doesn't mean you stop tying to help the ones who are left alive," Aliena says, through gritted teeth. "That doesn't mean you stop trying to be better. What about--I don't know, Varric? Are you even friends with Varric? Anders didn't convince you to help mages, at the very least? Aveline didn't scold you into helping the guards? Did you have no one you cared for at all to try to be a better person for?"

Again, Len feels an immediate instinct to deny any kind of attachment. But there's something about lying to this person, this other version of herself even, that feels wrong. "Varric and I get along fine, and Aveline appreciated me not breaking the law to aid apostates."

She can feel herself getting snappish, defensive. "I cared for my family. I care for my friends. Even Merrill with her blood magic, and Fenris with his mage issues. Even when Isabela caused a Qunari invasion and ditched me to deal with it myself. Even when Anders blew up the damn Chantry and forced a Rite of Annulment.

"Sometimes I feel like the only thing I've done in Kirkwall is clean up the catastrophes that my friends drag me into. Why isn't that _enough_? Why does it always have to be my job to help everyone in this city? Looking out for my own is difficult enough; I don't see why every bystander and stranger's problem is somehow my responsibility to solve! I just want to be left alone!"

"It doesn't have to be your job," Aliena says, and she hasn't felt this angry since Anders tried to convince her to kill him. She's angry that part of her agrees with the other Hawke, and she's angry that she doesn't want to admit it. "I didn't want to save the city either, I just wanted to live there, but it wasn't going to leave me alone. It was _never_ going to leave me alone. From day one, when those deserters tried to force their way into the city via the sword and dragged us into the fight, there was no way that I was going to get away with just living quietly and letting things be. There was always going to be something that needed attention, and I was always going to be the one to fix it. So instead of pouting about it like a child, I put on my breeches and dealt with it."

She takes a deep breath, and then a drink, and then another breath. Her eyes flash as she glares at the other Hawke, and there's something dangerous under the veneer of jokes and sarcasm that isn't usually there. She tries to be the good guy, but every once in a while, someone just needs a good punch to the face. She's not entirely unsure they haven't reached that point here.

"Instead of whining about how annoying the world was, I decided to stand up and try to fix it," she finishes. "And I fucking _tried_."

"Hey, I tried too, you know," Len snaps. "And do you know what I ended up with? A city in flames, people dead in the streets, and blood on my hands. All those people I helped over the years, the odd jobs, the searching for the things they'd lost, what good did it even do? Everything went to shit anyway. Why the hell did I even bother?"

Len glares at her mug, too angry to even keep drinking it. "They called me Champion and then looked at me like I was their savior. Why? Because I managed to kill an important Qunari? I'd never have done it if I knew I was going to end up responsible for every person in Kirkwall!

"' _Help us, Hawke!' 'Protect us, Hawke!' 'Fix the Circle somehow!' 'Save the mages!' 'Stand with the templars or be killed!' 'Give your damn life for our city despite all the shit we've done to you!_ '" She pounds a fist against the counter. "I might as well have become a blood mage after all, since Kirkwall seemed intent on wringing every drop from my body to protect itself!"

"You bothered because it mattered!" Aliena shouts, and part of her can't believe she's saying this out loud. These are things she's always been very careful to keep under her skin. She needs her reputation--that sarcastic, uncaring Hawke she projects has always protected her, kept people from coming after her and her soft heart. Kept people from coming after her friends.

But she doesn't have any friends here, clearly, and her carefully crafted cynicism cracks a bit under the strain.

"It mattered to the people you helped," she says, knuckles white where she grips the edge of the bar too tightly, stopping her from lunging at the other Hawke. "It mattered that you found their lost scarf and gave it back--it mattered that you killed the dragon so the miners could go back to work, to earn a living, to feed themselves and their children. It mattered that you killed the Arishok and stopped the city from burning to the ground, that you saved people's homes and their lives, and it _mattered_. It was important!

"It mattered because it was important to them. Maker forbid, right? Not everything is always about you--the world wasn't nice to you a few times, well boo hoo. It wasn't nice to me either. It wasn't nice to Isabela, or Merrill, or Anders. It wasn't nice to the mages you sent back tot he Circle or the templars I killed. It wasn't nice to the people who got eaten by the dragon at the Bone Pit. But every once in a while, when you bothered to lift your finger to help, it was nice to someone.

"You got Isabela a ship, and for the first time, the world was working in her favor. You went with Varric into that damn haunted mansion and the world let him put that right because you helped. You went and killed the dragon and everyone who worked in the Bone Pit went to work the next day in a world that was a little better because you made it safe for them. And if you were doing it right, then the world would have been nice to you every once in a while, too. The world gave me Isabela, and you know what--I can live with qunari invasions and mage rebellions and whatever the fuck else Kirkwall decides to throw at me, because whatever shit it puts me through, at least I got Isabela out of the deal, and that's enough. That should be enough."

She's breathing heavily when she stops, and she falls back against the bar, her elbows skidding on the rough surface behind her until her back crashes into the edge and she winces. She lets the old wood support her, her legs shaking in her anger. She doesn't understand how the other Hawke can't see it--and it's frightening to her. One small change and this could have been her. This uncaring, heedless creature staring daggers at her across the bar could have been her.

She shudders a bit at the thought.

Len listens to the tirade, anger building, boiling up inside. She doesn't take true critique well, and is usually quick to let others know what she thinks of their opinions on her actions. After all, what reason have they to judge her? And yet this, a person ostensibly her, yet in some other world seems to have more right to it than anyone.

Len finds herself bristling, but she's not sure whether it's directed toward this girl or at herself. Perhaps it's the same thing, in the end.

She snarls, pushing herself away from the bar and stalking across the room, kicking a chair over as she walks past. "So what is this then? Are you some kind of _moral teaching_ meant to show me the error of my ways? Some 'better' me, the one who _cares_ , the one who did it all right and helped the mages like she was supposed to? Are you the Maker's punishment for my sins? For my apostasy?"

Flames crackle around her hands, summoned unconsciously in her anger. She's always had difficulty controlling her mana when her emotions get out of hand. "Fuck you. Fuck the Chantry. Fuck the Maker himself." She throws her head back, shouting less at Aliena and more at the void around them. "I _get_ it! I screwed up! Kirkwall sucked to begin with but all my meddling did nothing but fuck it up worse! Thanks, Fade-mirror vision thing. So _glad_ we've had this chat."

Twisted malice drips from the words as she spits them.

Aliena raises her eyebrows, debating whether or not to roll her eyes. "Please," she says, some of her usual sarcasm creeping back into her voice, "carry on going mad, if you like. I'll be stuck here, having a drink."

She's getting very tired of all this. But she's no mage, and this is clearly magic, and she wishes she could get out but she has no idea how. So she takes another swig from her mug and sighs.

"Feel free to burn the place down," she calls out, "Maker knows this place could use a fumigation."

Len's flames twist up her arms, something more controlled and deliberate now. Channeled intentionally. "Or maybe I could kill you and get out of this nightmare you've called me into. Get back to the nightmare that is my life instead."

Aliena actually laughs, finishing her drink before setting her mug aside. " _I_ pulled _you_ here?" she says, incredulous. "Sorry, but, who exactly is the mage here?" She very casually draws an arrow from her quiver, smoothing the fletching before twirling it around--a trick she learned from Varric--and testing the edge of the head. She doesn't draw her bow, but the danger is very obvious in her actions: she can put the arrow through the other Hawke just as quickly as she can throw that fire.

Len lets out a frustrated yell, turning around and setting a table alight instead. As always, the arson doesn't actually make her feel any better, though there's some small satisfaction in seeing something destroyed.

She stands, back to Aliena, and there's something almost weary beneath the angry strength in her posture. "I don't need this," she says with a quiet intensity. "Not from you. From _me_. I get enough of... everything from everyone else, all the time. What gives you the right to judge what I've done?"

Aliena stares at Len's back, gaze stony, and she doesn't put the arrow away. "Tell me that you've never thought there might have been a better way. That something like a conscience once twinged in the depths of your mind to make you think that _maybe_ you could have done things differently. Tell me that and I'll tell you why I'm judging you."

Len's head turns, and one icy blue eye finds Aliena over her shoulder. Her lips pull upward in a smile devoid of all mirth. "But if I were to admit something like that, how would I live with myself?" She gives an empty laugh. "Everyone _knows_ I don't feel anything. I can't. Obviously."

Aliena's glare sharpens. _Obviously_.

"Well, I'm sure you sleep well at night," she says. Then, her lips curling in a smile that mirrors Len's: "What makes you think I do?"

There's something strikingly familiar about that expression that Len feels that perhaps the two of them are somewhat the same person deep down. It's a truly disconcerting thing to think about, still.

"You? Sleep well?" Len scoffs. "Why wouldn't you? Didn't you do it all _right_? Help everybody out of the goodness of your heart? Save the mages, fight the templars? Aren't you supposed to be the good one?"

Aliena shrugs. "I still killed people. People died, and it wasn't necessarily always because they were guilty. Sometimes I think maybe I should have done more, and sometimes I think everything would have been easier if I hadn't given a damn."

She twirls the arrow idly, her brow furrowed as she thinks. "I did okay by the mages--unlike you," she says bluntly, "but that doesn't mean I did everything right. The city was still on fire. And honestly, my first thought was, 'If I care less, I will stop breathing.'"

Len shrugs. "Well, not giving a damn has gotten me this far. Why stop now?"

Aliena sighs. "You're not listening. I felt the _same_ way. I just took the effort to overcome it."

Len hooks her foot under the leg of the chair she kicked over earlier, setting it back upright and settling into it backwards. "Well. Little late for all that now, isn't it? Unless we're expecting some other horrible explosion to rip our lives apart and force us to solve everyone's problems again." She pauses. "Considering how our life usually goes, maybe we should, honestly."

"I always expect the worst," Aliena says, "then I'm surprised by the puppies and the dead templars and all the other wonderful things that occasionally decide to happen. But you asked who I was to judge you--so I told you. I’m the person who felt the same things you did, but actually put in the work to be better"

Len sneers. "Congratulations then. Consider me judged. What do you want me to do about it? Go tell Anders I'm sorry? Dedicate my life to whatever stupid rebellion the mages come up with?"

Aliena shrugs. "If that will make you feel better, go for it, but really, you seem to be having so much fun wallowing in self-pity and guilt. I wouldn't want to take that away from you."

Len shakes her head, wishing she could figure out how to conjure another mug of fake alcohol. "It's not like Anders would even talk to me anyway."

"I'm surprised I still am," Aliena mutters under her breath, finally reaching over her shoulder to put her arrow back in her quiver. Louder she says, "What, you don't think he'd be up for a chat with someone who sided with the people trying to murder him and everyone like him?"

Len gives her a sharp look. "Well, if I'd figured out that was the way to shut him up earlier, maybe I could have saved myself nine years of nagging and whining."

"If I had had to drag along behind you for nine years, watching you hand people over to the Circle, I would have done a lot more than nag and whine," Aliena says, eyes narrowing. "Anders must have been showing restraint."

"Not enough." Len says darkly. "If only Cullen had listened to me when I warned him that Anders was planning to do something..." She trails off, leaving the sentence open. "Ah, another failure of the Order, I suppose."

"Well, you can't expect Cullen to achieve anything beyond tying his boots in the morning; it's about all he can handle," Aliena says, rolling her eyes. "At least Anders got things moving--nine years of no one doing a damned thing about the mages, and suddenly people had to pay attention. It probably wasn't the best way to force people to look, but at least they did."

Len gave her a guarded look. "At least he had the backbone to see it through, I'll say that much. Even if he did try to get me to give him the easy way out."

"Oh, Maker, please tell me you didn't kill him," Aliena says, suddenly remembering the conversation she had had with Anders in Lowtown, right before their mad dash to the Gallows--a conversation in which he had tried to convince her to execute him. If Len had had the same conversation... "Hasn't he been through enough?"

Len scoffs. "I just told you. I _didn't_ give him the easy way out. What, you think I'd let him set off this whole mess and then just leave me to clean it up on my own? No. I told him if he _really_ thought all of this was necessary, then he was going to pick up his damn staff, walk down with me to the Gallows, and stand at my side while we finished what he started."

Aliena stared, trying to process what she was hearing. "But you said you sided with the templars," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "You killed all the mages in the Circle who tried to defend themselves."

Len stayed quiet, watching her with a bit of a challenging smile, then nodding once. _Figure it out yet? Going to do something about it?_ that expression taunted.

"You fucking piece of rat-shaped nug shit," Aliena says, the realization clearly visible in her eyes, staring daggers into Len, in her hands, shaking as she curls them into fists. "You made him kill them. The people he spent _nine years_ trying to save. You forced him to kill them all."

"Yeah," Len says, her words still an unrepentant challenge. "I did. I told him I didn't want to be involved in any of this, and he made it my problem. So, what's my problem, is his problem. That's what he gets."

Aliena crosses the room in three steps, her fist lashing out to catch Len's jaw hard enough to tip her chair backward and send it--and its occupant--crashing to the floor.

"You _fuck_ ," she says, her voice dangerously quiet, her bow already in her hands, arrow on the string leveled down toward Len's throat. "Anders tried, for nine years he _tried_ , so hard, and you just threw another problem on his pile, put another boulder on his back. That man has suffered more than you or I, and you just fed him more guilt because you didn't have the balls to _deal with it yourself_." She's breathing heavily again, and she's almost ashamed that she's allowed this person to get under her skin so easily.

Len sprawls back on the floor, skidding across the dirty wood. Girl had an arm on her. Len supposes she would be disappointed in anything less. It'd be a shame to have a Hawke who didn't know how to throw a punch well.

She laughs as she comes to a stop, head throbbing from both the punch and the fall. "I put another boulder on _his_ back? Well if that's the case, I was only returning the favor. He put this whole Rite of Annulment, Chantry explosion nonsense on my plate. He started this."

Len stares down the arrow, then opens her hands flat on either side of her head. It's ostensibly a position of surrender, but there's little fear in her eyes. "You going to kill me, Hawke?"

"I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about how I've probably killed better people than you."

"Probably." Len smirks at her. "I certainly know I have."

Aliena's frown tightens, her gaze hardens, but her her shoulders are relaxed, her aim unwavering. She briefly wonders if this mage is powerful enough to burn the arrow out of the air before it hits her. She briefly wonders what happens if one gets shot inside dream-like dimensions that aren't really there. She briefly wonders if she should find out. For science.

"You should probably start looking for a way out of here," she says finally. "I'm not sure I can take much more of your face."

Len clicks her tongue. "Disappointing, but unsurprising. Guess I should have known you wouldn't do it. You don't like _killing mages_ , right?"

"You might need your hands to get us out of here," Aliena says coolly. "And I'm not carrying you, so I'm running out of unnecessary parts."

"How altruistic of you," Len says, pushing herself up into a sitting position. "Guess it's lucky for me that you're the good Hawke, huh?” She glances around. "How exactly are we getting out of here?"

"I'm all for walking out the front door, but something tells me it can't possibly be that simple," Aliena says, her bow still aimed at Len, but there's no threat in it now.

"Well." Len says. "Maybe we should have tried that."

"Be my guest."

Len sticks her tongue out in what is most certainly a dignified and mature way. "So I'm supposed to go first?"

Aliena just raises an eyebrow, and pulls her bowstring back just a little farther. "Well, at this range, the arrow will pass through your body and come out the other side, so."

Len holds her hands up, rolling her eyes, and walks back toward the door. "And here I thought we were becoming such good friends, Lady Hawke."

Aliena lets go of the bowstring. The arrow shrieks through the air and buries itself in the splintered wood of the door frame, passing close enough to Len's head to leave a line of blood along her temple.

"Oops," she says brightly. "My hand slipped."

Len raises a hand to the cut, noting that her fingers come away bloodied, then smiles. "Maybe I was wrong about you, Hawke. You should be careful though, I'm sure you're well aware of the kinds of things Isabela says about slippery fingers."

Aliena laughs. "Isabela likes my fingers just fine. The rest of me, too."

Len's hands find the doorknob, and she turns to open it. The swirling glassy surface on the other side is oddly familiar. "This looks like that damn eluvian, doesn't it?"

"That was a mirror, too," Aliena says, stepping forward, curious. "If that damn mirror in the Emporium was anything like Merrill's, then perhaps it _is_ as simple as walking out the front door."

"So long as you know I'm not using blood magic for it."

"Oh, of course, you'd never stoop that low," Aliena says, the sarcasm thick on her tongue. "You couldn't have had the moral high ground while killing all those mages if you'd so much as nicked yourself while lighting a candle."

"Of course not," Len says with mock affront. "Blood magic is _bad_ , you know."

"The worst," Aliena says, nodding.

Len puts a hand against the mirror, which flashes to light around her touch. She thinks she'd be able to push through it without too much force. "Shall we?"

"After you," Aliena says, but she steps forward and puts her hand on the cool surface next to Len's.

"Pleasure to meet you, Hawke. Good talk."

“Hope to never see you again, Hawke. It was lovely."

Len laughs, then steps through, and lets the light take her back to wherever that damn Emporium was.

Aliena pushes through after her, and opens her eyes in the Emporium. She stumbles back a bit from the mirror, blinking, and Varric glances up at her from the rack of rare weaponry.

"You all right, Hawke?" he asks, brow furrowing in concern.

"Sure," she says. "Just tell me we saved the mages and Bethany is alive."

"I told you not to touch that thing," Anders said from across the room, putting down a sheaf of recipe papers. "What happened?"

Aliena sighs. "I'm not sure you want to know..."

Somewhere similar, but different, Fenris looks over at Len as she steps back from the mirror. "Did you touch it? He told you it was dangerous..."

Len scoffs. "Touch it? Of course not, what would give you that idea?"

"You've been frozen in place for ten minutes and entirely unresponsive."

Len scowls at him. It's like he asks her questions he knows she'll lie to just so that he can catch her in the lies. "Oh. Well in that case, I guess the only thing there is to say is: Fuck that mirror and fuck everything about Kirkwall and also the Chantry."

Xenon the Antiquarian chuckles.

.


End file.
